<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Olives and Other Lost Things by ModernMutiny</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26368066">Olives and Other Lost Things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernMutiny/pseuds/ModernMutiny'>ModernMutiny</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic Fluff, Gen, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mentioned Booker | Sebastien le Livre, One Shot, Religious Conflict</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:00:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,827</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26368066</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernMutiny/pseuds/ModernMutiny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>His lips reminded Joe of a berry whose name he forgot long ago, that had never lived to see an English name, having been hidden and gone extinct before it reached the isles. A taste that now existed only in memory and the caress of Nicolo’s kiss. A taste he would never truly experience again.</p><p>That was the issue with humanity, for all its merits. People still did not understand, after all these centuries, that for every wondrous advancement came the loss of something irreplaceable.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>126</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Olives and Other Lost Things</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I am Soft and thinking about impermanence and how that affects people who never change.<br/>Also The Old Guard is officially my new favourite movie.</p><p>(minor corrections to language and historical events made)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Joe hummed into Nicky’s mouth, musing how perfect his long life had become. They were on the couch, tangled up in each other, as Nile lounged in the same room and Andy pretended not to feel the utter domesticity of it all while drinking a clear liquid that had suspiciously appeared despite the tap water in this safehouse not being potable. Joe’s money would have been on gin if he had any space in his brain not currently occupied by the taste of Nicolo on his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His lips reminded Joe of a berry whose name he forgot long ago, that had never lived to see an English name, having been hidden and gone extinct before it reached the isles. A taste that now existed only in memory and the caress of Nicolo’s kiss. A taste he would never truly experience again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was the issue with humanity, for all its merits. People still did not understand, after all these centuries, that for every wondrous advancement came the loss of something irreplaceable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky pulled back, a slight frown wrinkled between his eyebrows. He must have sensed Joe’s mind wandering since he usually devoted all his musings and more in these moments to the feel of Nicky on his lips, in his arms, in his life. The difference in intensity must have been startling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tout vas bien?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oui - yes, I just,” Joe switched to English, shaking his head. Nile was sitting quite still on the couch across from them, all her idle page-flipping quieted. She had in her hands an old periodical Andy had dug up from the Edwardian Era to distract her from hovering around Andy’s shoulders as if she were going to spontaneously combust simply because she was able to, now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But whenever he and Nicky spoke a language that Nile didn’t understand - which was most - in her vicinity, she inevitably accused them of dirty talk. The times she was right in that respect were only narrowly outnumbered by the times she wasn’t, but no matter how true it was he didn’t appreciate the leers and winks and gestures she made in their direction to try and encourage them. Joe suspected she was almost as big a fan of their relationship as he and Nicky were, themselves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had argued, once, that their “private conversations” weren’t quite private if Andy could understand practically any language they both spoke, but Nile countered that Andy didn’t count since she was probably drunk and very used to ignoring anything Joe and Nicky said to each other in hushed tones at this point and, well, she wasn’t wrong. Nile’s perceptiveness could be astounding when she put her mind to it. She was a very nice addition to the team.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe hadn’t noticed that his gaze had fallen to his hands - hands that were wrapped around his loves, handling them so gently even when the motions were unconscious - until he pulled his gaze back up to meet Nicky’s eyes once more. Nicky, who was waiting so patiently for Joe to find the words he was struggling to string together, wrestling with the phrasing in his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His thoughts on Nicky always came to him so easily, just as their love came easily to him, but it was the other ideas - musings upon the reality of their long lives and the years they’d seen and fought through together - that vexed him. He was cognizant, as always, of choosing the right words to make his meaning known. Words were a powerful thing; they required careful consideration.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you remember that one night,” Joe started, watching as Nicky’s eyes brightened at the prospect of ambling through their shared moments over the centuries, “the one we spent in the garden on that rooftop?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?” Nicky got that sparkle in his eye, the one that said he was remembering something quite salacious and hoping Joe was thinking the same. And Nile thought that Nicky was the pure one, only because he was a priest in the beginning. “The skytop garden in Dubai? Or the one on the tenement house in San Francisco?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe chuckled. Salacious memories, indeed. “No, in the beginning. The first time I took you to my home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky’s smirk turned warm and pliable as his eyes softened at the corners. Oh, how Joe loved those expressive moonlit eyes. “I will never forget that night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been their first night together as a couple, biblically. They snuck up to lay amongst the warm rooftop tiles, hiding their bodies between the bushes and trees of berries, moonlight shining through the gaps in the leaves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You took him to meet your parents?” Nile perked up, no longer pretending not to listen in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe laughed, loud and free. Nicky’s returning chuckle sat low in his belly where Joe’s hand could feel it reverberate in his back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Nicky said, shaking his head, “this was long after anyone we had known in life had died. By the beginning, he means of our travels together, after we spent a decade slitting each other’s throats in new and exciting places.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was a wonderful place,” Joe said to Nicky, smoothing over Nile’s intrusion, “relishing the dusk and its reprieve from the hot sun, feeding each other those triangular berries off the shrub. What was its name, do you remember?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky frowned, unsure where this whimsical bout of remembrance was headed. “The berries?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or the plant,” Joe nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky looked to the ceiling, eyes half-closed as they did when he tried his hardest to remember a fact from long ago. “I do not think you ever told me the official term. I just called them zaytuns. Olives.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe hummed, savouring his faint memory of the salty sweetness. “They were encased, I remember, like little pomegranates made of wood.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky’s tone grew nostalgic. “Mini coconuts filled with sweet mulberries.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ve been extinct a long time now,” Joe circled back to his point, enclosing both of Nicky’s hands in his own. “One of the tragic losses of advancement. Of technology and colonies and people who do not care for the world because they cannot live to see the destruction they have wrought.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky moved in, pressing his lips to Joe’s neck in a comforting manner. “That’s why we fight,” he murmured into Joe’s skin, “to challenge fate. To change the world for the better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe hummed, looking across the room to the cross still settled comfortably on Nile’s chest. He envied their faith, her and Nicky, for he could never believe in a God so careless as to allow humanity to destroy itself if not for the actions of a few men. Then again, he supposed, all it ever took was the actions of a few good men to turn the tides. That’s what he’d been taught in the Crusades, at least, facing more men than he had ever seen, all intent on pillaging his land in the name of their God. Some philosophies are harder to forego than others.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose,” he said instead, leaning into Nicky’s embrace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky kissed his neck chastely and sat back up to meet Joe’s eyes. “You are not allowed to become pessimistic and sad, my love,” Nicky said with an intensity that intoned this was more serious than his words betrayed, “that position is already taken by our resident Diogenes.” He waved a hand towards Andy, who had refilled her glass with some sort of blue liquid that he sorely hoped was not window cleaner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy snorted into her drink, not pausing from her gulping swallows until the glass was empty once more. “That’s a fucking compliment, thank you. He was great at parties, at least.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nile spluttered. “You knew </span>
  <em>
    <span>Diogenes</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy shrugged. “I make a habit of finding the fun kind of assholes every few centuries. Hence, Booker.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky bristled at the name of their own traitor but hid his reaction from Andy and Nile. He could not hide it from Joe - who tightened a hand around Nicky’s thigh as soon as the name fell from Andy’s lips - nor would Joe wish he could. Though his Nicolo’s anger stewed low and long, Joe would not wish his love would hide it for anything. Luckily, Nicky had made no effort to, not once in their near one-thousand years together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wait, that was close, actually. A mere sixty years in the future. He was behind the curve on planning, Nicky was probably already trying to outdo whatever spectacular affair he imagined Joe had already planned. He was going to have to try much harder to outdo the love of his life on this occasion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you remember those little cakes from the Viet?” Nicky asked, oblivious to Joe’s internal scheming, as he ran his long fingers over Joe’s forearm. “Back in the 1300’s, I believe?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe remembered very well. They spent half a year gorging themselves on those cakes, covered in honey and lychee cream. They had only ever found them in one small market in a village away from the crowds and cities and roaming armies. He wondered if that old woman, elderly and frail even then, had ever shared her recipe. He wondered if those cakes died with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please tell me you didn’t do anything indecent with them,” Andy warned. Nicky had packaged some up to take with them the next time they saw Andy and Quynh, Joe remembered, and though they had gotten a little squished and stale, they were still remarkably good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe just smiled at her, satisfied. They, for the most part, did not do anything indecent with them. At least, not the ones they gave to Andy. Regardless, that wasn’t the reason Nicky brought them up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After so many centuries, Joe knew in his bones what Nicky tried to say, almost always. While his love was often the more straight-forward of the two of them, he often struggled to realize himself what the meaning behind his words was. As soon as he figured it out, he would waste no time in telling Joe exactly how he felt. Catholicism was a hell of a drug, however, even centuries later, and so Nicky was never the most introspective of people.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cakes, the olives, both were gone while he and Nicky were still there. They still had their family and their ever-changing lives and the loving gaze of the other half of their soul. Whatever may change, good things come too. If they don’t, well, there’s always little villages with tasty cakes in new places in the world, and time to stop and share them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe glanced at Nicky, who matched his smile. He watched Nicky’s eyes shine in the way that told Joe he longed to be understood, though he did not have the words to share. Luckily, Joe always had the words for both of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaned in, capturing Nicky’s lips in a gentle kiss, and marvelled at a world that allowed him this, these wondrous uncountable pleasures.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>the "olives" here were inspired by St Helena's Olives, which didn't go extinct until 2003 but the concept of these sweet berries lost forever kind of stuck with me. The cakes are made up, a mix of Jewish honey cakes and Chinese moon cakes and a couple of other things. I have actually made cakes like this before, a modified angel food cake almost, and they're Delicious.<br/>also the catalyst for this is that my favourite Italian restaurant a few towns over shut down and their garlic bread was AMAZING and now it shall be lost forever :(<br/>also also, they're speaking french here because while I am in the process of learning Arabic, I don't know near enough to confidently put it in a fic. And french is generally my go-to, if you've read any of my other fics, since I know it so well.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>